Closing summary
Former Lib Dem leader Sir Vince Cable gave testimony at the public inquiry into the Horizon IT scandal calling managers at the Post Office “thugs in suits”, claiming he would have got to the bottom of the miscarriage of justice if he stayed in government.
Cable, who was business secretary from 2010 to 2015, told the inquiry that he only began to “smell a rat” just before parliament was dissolved ahead of the general election.
However, he failed to act on a campaign being mounted by a growing number of MPs, and only learned who lead campaigner Sir Alan Bates was in March 2015, blaming them for not coming to see him in person.
Cable said that issues relating to the Horizon IT system were barely raised with him in the five years he was in post, and admitted that in hindsight he should have been given a detailed briefing because of the “risk factor” surrounding the technology that was not being revealed by the Post Office or civil servants.
Elsewhere, ITV reported a 17% boost in advertising in the second quarter thanks to the Euro 2024 tournament and a boost in viewing of Love Island, while the broadcaster also acquired the maker of hit TV shows including “Sherlock”.
And Universal Music, home to artists including Taylor Swift, suffered a share price lunge of more than a quarte after the world’s biggest music company reported lower than expected streaming numbers.
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Key event
Greg Clark, the business secretary from 2016 to 2019, has begun to give his testimony at the public inquiry into the Post Office Horizon IT scandal.
Clark was in place as the Post Office started to come under signifcant pressure as Sir Alan Bates and 554 other subpostmasters began – and won -- a high court action against the organisation.
The Horizon scandal resulted in more than 700 post office operators being prosecuted between 1999 and 2015 for theft, fraud and false accounting because of faulty accounting software installed in the late 1990s.
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